Curiosity led me again to-day to the Tunnel. I went in the diving-bell down to the bed of the river, and spent half an hour there, looking at the process of stopping the breach with sand-bags and earth. Excepting a rather violent pain in my ears, I found it more comfortable in our metal box, the deeper we sank. It has two thick glass windows at the top: and near them two leathern pipes which admit fresh air. The bell has no floor,--only a narrow board on which to set your feet, and two strong benches on the sides. It is lighted by lanterns. The workmen had capital water-boots, which resist the wet four-and-twenty hours; and I was particularly delighted at writing the address of the maker in my pocket-book among the fishes, "_auf des Stromes tiefunterstem Grunde_." After having escaped safe and sound from the water, I was near suffering a sad calamity from fire. I had gone for a minute into another room, and a candle which had burned down in the socket set fire to the papers on my writing-table: before I could extinguish it, many things very interesting to me were destroyed. Copies of letters, prints and drawings, an unfinished novel, (what a pity!) numberless addresses, a part of my journal,--all became the prey of the flames. I could not help laughing when I saw that all the receipts were left untouched, while the unpaid bills were consumed to the last vestige. That's what I call an obliging fire. The great packet of your letters is burnt round the edges, so that they look as if they were written on mourning paper:--right again, for letters between people who love each other, always mourn over the necessity for writing them. The Vienna courier you wot of, who came charged with a hundred thousand blessings, is turned negro; but his life is happily saved, and his cinq-foil leaf is in full preservation. I send him back to you as a witness and a messenger of the fire. _August 21st._